Fasting of Things Present - Missions as Fasting from Family
A FASTING of family is not a neglect of family – neither the family that you leave behind in America nor the family that you bring with you to the mission field. Instead it involves a mourning over lost time with extended family and some lonely holidays; it involves a fasting of financial and physical comfort and educational opportunity for your children; you’re not going to find an SAT prep class or after school violin lessons for your kids in the Congo. And it involves an exposure of your family to some potentially dangerous and scary circumstances in enemy territory.
It sounds funny to talk about dangers in Japan which is one of the safest countries in the world; but that depends on how you define safe; I have 5 children and we live in a country that has an alarmingly high rate of child molestation and was the number one provider of child pornography on the Internet.
I think Japan could have the most densely concentrated demonic population in the world. This is a nation that worships 8 million gods. There are 183,000 cult groups registered with the government. And in almost every single house and apartment in the most densely packed nation in the world there is incense burned, food offered, and prayers prayed to idols which Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10 are offered to demons.
No, Japan is not a place to casually bring your children it is a battlefield.
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Such fasting of the blessings of LIFE is difficult, but it comes with an encouragement from Scripture that it is the RIGHT THING to do and with a promise –
Isaiah 58 ‐
Is. 58:6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is. 58:7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter — when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Is. 58:8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
The Lord has CHOSEN FASTING to:
LOOSE the chains of injustice
To set the oppressed FREE
To share food with the HUNGRY
And as we engage in such food and LIFE fasting our light will BREAK FORTH like the dawn – righteousness will go before us and the glory of the LORD will be our guard.
If we will spend ourselves on behalf of the hungry and the lost, then our LIGHT will rise in the DARKNESS; the Lord will guide us, satisfy us, and strengthen us, like a well‐watered garden and spring whose waters never fail.
That PROMISE is good enough for me! How about you?
- Michael Oh, Founder/President CBI, Nagoya, Japan
It sounds funny to talk about dangers in Japan which is one of the safest countries in the world; but that depends on how you define safe; I have 5 children and we live in a country that has an alarmingly high rate of child molestation and was the number one provider of child pornography on the Internet.
I think Japan could have the most densely concentrated demonic population in the world. This is a nation that worships 8 million gods. There are 183,000 cult groups registered with the government. And in almost every single house and apartment in the most densely packed nation in the world there is incense burned, food offered, and prayers prayed to idols which Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10 are offered to demons.
No, Japan is not a place to casually bring your children it is a battlefield.
‐‐
Such fasting of the blessings of LIFE is difficult, but it comes with an encouragement from Scripture that it is the RIGHT THING to do and with a promise –
Isaiah 58 ‐
Is. 58:6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is. 58:7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter — when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Is. 58:8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
The Lord has CHOSEN FASTING to:
LOOSE the chains of injustice
To set the oppressed FREE
To share food with the HUNGRY
And as we engage in such food and LIFE fasting our light will BREAK FORTH like the dawn – righteousness will go before us and the glory of the LORD will be our guard.
If we will spend ourselves on behalf of the hungry and the lost, then our LIGHT will rise in the DARKNESS; the Lord will guide us, satisfy us, and strengthen us, like a well‐watered garden and spring whose waters never fail.
That PROMISE is good enough for me! How about you?
- Michael Oh, Founder/President CBI, Nagoya, Japan
